


Never Thought I'd End Up Here, With You

by Droewyn



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (but not really), Alternate Sochi, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, And Just a PINCH of Identity Porn, Animal Attack, Bullying, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, Minor Angst, Naked Cuddling, Shapeshifting, Sharing a Bed, Sochi-Typical Angst, Soulmates, Spirit Animals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:18:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22090135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Droewyn/pseuds/Droewyn
Summary: He didn't even see who it was.  The most magical moment in a person's life, when destined partners meet, and bond, and shift for the first time, and Yuuri hadmissedit.  Because his back was turned.  Because he hadn't been able to face the blank politeness in Victor Nikiforov's eyes.  Because the absolutelastthing he wanted was to commemorate his failure.  Because he and Mochi had been in the same room with Victor and his soul beast, andnothing had happened.Until it did.  And he didn't even know who his soulmate was.For Krimson Khaos.  Happy holidays!  <3
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 99
Kudos: 196
Collections: Yuri!!! on Ice Secret Skater, Yuri!!! on Ice Secret Skater 2019





	1. Commemorative Photo?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Yuuri!”
> 
> He was looking over his shoulder almost before he’d even realized that someone had called out his name. But it wasn’t just someone, was it? Not with that accent. Not with that smooth, sexy baritone.
> 
> Why on earth would Victor Nikiforov be calling _Yuuri’s_ name?

When Mari called about Vicchan, Yuuri was convinced that things couldn’t possibly get any worse than they were at that moment. Then he’d skated – if you could call that _skating_ – and realized that, for once in his life, he’d actually been too optimistic. After that, not only had he been caught crying in the bathroom by the Russian Punk, but the encounter had been so unsettling that he had accidentally summoned his soul beast to his side. Like a frightened child, as Plisetsky had been so kind as to point out when the silver-white wolf had materialized between them. Fortunately, Mochi had only yawned in the Russian prodigy’s face, which triggered an explosion of foul language, but nothing worse than that.

Eventually the boy stalked out of the bathroom, and Yuuri heaved a sigh of relief. Mochi cocked his head and gave a brief whine.

“I’m fine,” Yuuri hastened to reassure the wolf. It was an obvious lie, and fooled neither of them. Mochi stayed pressed to Yuuri’s side as they left the bathroom, his presence more of a comfort than Yuuri had any right to, but it would be pointless to send him away again now that they were leaving the arena. And at least this way he’d be able to avoid the other skaters who were picking up their own soul beasts from the green room.

Coach Celestino was waiting in the hall outside the restroom door with Yuuri’s roller bag, a bird on each shoulder. The Moluccan cockatoo was looking around in interest and clucking quietly to herself, a cloud of animated cotton candy, while the scarlet macaw sat sad-eyed and silent. Phichit leaned against a wall nearby.

“I was starting to wonder if you fell in,” he remarked cheerfully when Yuuri emerged. He knew what it meant when his roommate disappeared into a bathroom, of course. Everyone at the DSC did, probably all the way down to the janitorial staff and the Zamboni girl. But Phichit also understood that, to Yuuri, the only thing worse than giving in to his mental weakness was to have that weakness acknowledged. So he pretended that nothing was wrong, and that allowed Yuuri to pretend that he hadn’t been sobbing in a toilet stall, and hopefully now he’d be able to get back to the hotel with some shred of his dignity still intact.

Celestino immediately started in on his usual post-competition pep talk as they made their way to the arena lobby. He praised Yuuri’s steps and spins, the way he had recovered after he’d fallen, pretty much anything the coach could sound even remotely enthusiastic about. The relentless positivity sounded like even more of a lie than usual, and Yuuri tuned him out without guilt. He already knew his free skate was the worst performance of his life, and no amount of sugarcoating would change that. Honestly, it only drew attention to the parts of his skate Celestino _wasn’t_ talking about.

Phichit bumped his shoulder. “I _said_ you should come out to dinner with Chris and me. There’s this Irish pub that’s supposed to be super authentic, and we’re going to sample like the entire menu. And liveblog it, obvs.”

Yuuri almost smiled. Phichit never ate the cuisine of the country he was actually visiting if he could help it, claiming that it would be too sad to fall in love with the food when he wouldn’t be able to eat it again ‘properly’ once he’d left. So it was a Cuban restaurant in France, Ethiopian in Canada, and American-style barbecue in Japan. And now, apparently, Irish in Sochi. Yuuri wondered if he should point out that potatoes and cabbage were big in Russian food as well.

He shook his head. “I’m tired and sore, and I really don’t need to be a third wheel on your date.” Been there, done that, got the eternal memory of being trapped in the corner of the booth when he’d realized that Chris had turned his and Phichit’s cute little game of footsie X-rated. “You two have fun.” And when it looked like Phichit was going to protest, he added, “Maybe we can do some sightseeing tomorrow during the gala practice?” As a medalist, Chris would of course receive an automatic invitation to the exhibition skate – and Yuuri definitely wouldn’t. He could let Phichit try to cheer him up without having to feel guilty that he was getting between soulmates. They saw each other so rarely during the competition season.

Phichit didn’t seem convinced. “Okay, but I still think—”

“Yuuri!”

He was looking over his shoulder almost before he’d even realized that someone had called out his name. But it wasn’t just someone, was it? Not with that accent. Not with that smooth, sexy baritone.

Why on earth would Victor Nikiforov be calling _Yuuri’s_ name?

The answer, of course, was that he wasn’t. As Plisetsky had pointed out in the bathroom, there were currently two Yuris in men’s singles, and one of them wasn’t a failure. It made sense that _he’d_ be worth Victor’s attention, and they were rinkmates besides.

Victor seemed to be berating Plisetsky about something as they rolled their gear through the crowded lobby. The junior champion’s bags were in a cart that doubled as a perch for his soul beast; it was common knowledge that Coach Yakov wouldn’t allow Plisetsky to carry the golden eagle on his shoulder while he was still growing, and seeing them together it was little wonder why. The bird absolutely dwarfed the delicate boy.

Victor’s own beast was a dark shadow at his feet, and Yuuri found himself craning to get a look at the little fox. He’d seen it before in the green rooms at Worlds and WTT, of course, and had once even dared to pet its silky black fur while the attendant wasn’t watching, but never when it was with Victor. Never when Mochi was with _him_. Never when there was a chance, no matter how unlikely, that—

“Commemorative photo?” His eyes snapped up, and _oh_. Victor was talking to him, now. Looking at him. Smiling. Without a hint of recognition in those crystalline blue eyes. “Sure!”

Mochi barked happily and nudged Yuuri’s leg with his nose. The little black fox was watching him with bright eyes, its tail starting to wag. Victor’s face was expectant.

And Yuuri… Yuuri just _couldn’t_. So he turned away, trudging toward the glass doors.

Suddenly, behind him, all hell broke loose. Mochi, barking. Someone else’s beast crying out. Shouts in angry-sounding Russian. Phichit swearing. Celestino’s birds screaming and beating their wings in unison. And then something collided with Yuuri’s back, knocking the wind out of him. He fell forward with a cry, the world spinning and shifting, stretching around him, until he was on the floor, tangled in a pile of his own Mizuno sponsor gear, his tiny body swimming in what suddenly seemed like meters of nylon fabric.

_No. No no no no no. Not now. Not_ here _, not like this. Not in front of—_

Yuuri managed to squirm out of the track suit. Everyone was staring; at him, and at someone behind him. A woman was standing in the doorway, seemingly heedless of the winter air that rushed past her into the vestibule even as she angled her phone down to focus on Yuuri. Into whatever he’d turned into.

More barking behind him. Mochi, sounding happier than Yuuri had ever heard him. Except, it wasn’t Mochi, was it? Not anymore. Yuuri’s soul beast was gone, just like Vicchan. Just like every single one of Yuuri’s hopes and dreams. Leaving him, what? A stranger in the body of his beloved wolf, someone else for Yuuri to let down?

Swallowing a sob, Yuuri did what he was best at. He ran.


	2. Flashback: November 1992

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Mari-chan, come and meet your new brother.”
> 
> Mari dutifully approached the bed where her mother was resting and peered at the red-faced infant in Kaa-san’s arms. The baby was sleeping, his eyes scrunched shut, his hands clenched in tiny balled fists. He was almost bald, with only a few wisps of black fuzz crowning his head. Mari wrinkled her nose. “He looks like a potato,” she declared, and Mangu-chan chirred in agreement.

“Mari-chan, come and meet your new brother.”

Mari dutifully approached the bed where her mother was resting and peered at the red-faced infant in Kaa-san’s arms. The baby was sleeping, his eyes scrunched shut, his hands clenched into tiny balled fists. He was almost bald, with only a few wisps of black fuzz crowning his head. Mari wrinkled her nose. “He looks like a potato,” she declared, and Mangu-chan chirred in agreement.

“Mari!” Tou-san’s voice was sharp, but Kaa-san only chuckled. 

“You looked rather like a root vegetable when you were born, too,” she smiled, running her fingers absently down the baby’s back as though she was petting some sort of weird, hairless, cat. “Very few of us are pretty right at our start. But you _were_ beautiful, and so is little Yuuri here.” 

As though _that_ made any kind of sense. How could something be both ugly and beautiful at the same time? And Mari’s new little brother was _definitely_ ugly. But the warning look in Tou-san’s eye suggested that trying to press the issue wouldn’t end well for her. _Sometimes, discretion is the better part of valor_ , as Minako-sensei said, which Mari understood to be a fancy way of saying, _just stop talking._

So she kept her mouth shut, and instead looked around the room for something more interesting to pay attention to than baby brothers. That was hard to do, when she wasn’t allowed to push the buttons on any of the machines that lined the walls. There was a television, but it was off, and anyway, it was the wrong time of day for anime. The cupboards under the sink were just as off-limits as the machines – not that there’d been anything cool in there the one time Mari had managed to sneak a peek – and the closet was just full of their coats and shoes and things.

If only she’d checked the batteries in her Gameboy before they’d left the onsen. She really wanted to beat Rockman III before Touya-kun did, so that he’d have to shut up about girls being bad at video games once and for all.

But the Gameboy was _dead_ , and the hospital was _boring_ , and the baby was _stupid_. Nobody was paying attention to Mari, not even Mangu-chan, and he was supposed to be her soul beast. But the little red mongoose with the striped tail had jumped off her shoulder ages ago, and now he was underneath Kaa-san’s bed, nose-to-nose with a bright-eyed ball of white fluff.

Mari’s gasp was lost in the bustle of the midwife returning with lunch and a blood pressure machine.

“Okaa-san!”

The midwife was talking a mile a minute as she examined mother and baby, asking how Kaa-san was feeling, when the baby had last been awake, whether Tou-san was letting her rest properly. Then she spotted Kaa-san’s bare toes peeking out from the blankets and immediately started lecturing her about keeping warm.

“Okaaaaa-saaaan!”

Kaa-san, who had hated wearing thick socks in the middle of summer, but had hated being told by every obaa-san in the neighborhood that she was endangering her unborn child by leaving them off even more, folded her arms and gave the midwife a mild look. “I don’t need to worry about keeping Yuuri-chan warm anymore,” she said as the midwife fussed and tutted. “He can wear his own socks now.” Which the baby already was; thin cotton sheaths on his feet that matched his baby blanket.

The midwife, less than impressed by Kaa-san’s logic, launched into a tirade about colds and other deadly diseases brought about by bare feet. Or tried to; at that moment two things happened that stopped the woman in her tracks. First, the little white puppy had become interested in the proceedings and trotted over to where the midwife stood, sticking its nose unerringly up the leg of the woman’s scrubs. Second, Mari had had enough of being ignored.

“OKAA-SAN MANGU-CHAN FOUND A PUPPY UNDER THE BED!”

The midwife shrieked and jumped backwards, narrowly missing Mangu-chan’s tail. The mongoose chittered angrily at her as he dodged, his tail waving like a banner. This caught the puppy’s attention and it chased after Mangu-chan, barking happily.

Kaa-san laughed. “Oh my, is it a soul beast for Yuu-chan already? How lucky! Toshiya—” Tou-san moved to quickly scoop up the wriggling ball of fluff, a broad grin spreading over his face as the little creature squirmed in his arms and licked his cheek. He deposited the puppy at the foot of the bed, where it sprawled and gave the Katsukis an open-mouthed doggy grin.

“A soulmate already born for him is a good sign.” The midwife had recovered her composure, and was examining the pup as clinically as she had Kaa-san and Yuuri-chan. “Not a Japanese breed, I don’t think. Shame. Male, too. That could be a concern regarding children later.”

Kaa-san’s smile sharpened in a way that made Mari glad it wasn’t directed at her. “My _concern_ is for the happiness and well-being of my son and his fated,” she murmured sweetly. “My job is to love them both and keep them safe so they will know that their choices will be respected, no matter what those choices turn out to be. Besides,” she added, almost as an afterthought, “neither my husband nor I had a Japanese soul beast.” Which was true, but they were also a matching pair, and barn owls were known to mate for life, both of which were thought to be _very_ lucky. But the midwife probably didn’t know either of those things, and Mari didn’t think that bringing them up would help.

Apparently the midwife understood about discretion and valor, too. “Of course, of course,” she demurred. “Plenty of time to think of such things in the future. And he is a striking little beast.” She didn’t point out that it was unlikely that the puppy’s coloration matched Yuuri’s human soulmate’s – another sign of a lucky pairing – but now Kaa-san’s smile had dimples in it and Mari knew that her mother had heard it just the same.

The midwife really should have quit while she was ahead.


	3. Tag; You're It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A whine cut through the night air. A little oddly pitched, maybe. Definitely out of breath. But as familiar to Yuuri as his own voice.
> 
> Mochi.

He dove between the woman’s legs, ignoring her startled yelp as he fled out the door and into the night. The parking lot of the Ice Palace was clearing out slowly; it was easy enough for Yuuri to dodge both pedestrians and traffic in his agile little body, and once he was away from the arena – from the people who had _seen_ – he only attracted the occasional glance. A person using their animal form to get around was hardly noteworthy, after all.

The Olympic Park had changed since Yuuri was there in 2014, but it was still just familiar enough for the memory to sting. Twelfth place, nowhere near the podium; not even top ten. Another failure. Olympic failure, Grand Prix failure, failure at real-pet ownership, failure at life…

Yuuri ran faster.

Eventually, the park gave way to housing developments and industrial complexes. The reality of a city that had existed before the Olympics, and would continue to endure long after the last of the hastily and expensively constructed facilities had been torn down or converted to other uses. Yuuri turned down streets and avenues at random, not bothering to pay attention to where he was going beyond basic traffic avoidance. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the pounding of his heart, the chill air that ruffled his fur and whistled in his ears but didn’t freeze him – not the way it would have before he’d shifted. What mattered was the panic that thrummed in his veins, urging him to just keep going, keep running. As though he could outrun his heartbreak. As though he had a right to try.

It couldn’t last, of course. Even the swiftest runner – and oh, Yuuri was _fast_ now, whatever he was – couldn’t keep it up forever, much as he wanted to. Reluctantly, a run became a lope, a lope became a trot, and a trot became a jog, until finally he came to rest in an alley between a house and a convenience store, trembling with exertion, panting.

Calm.

Somewhere between the arena and wherever he’d ended up, Yuuri had burned through his panic. The misery and sadness were still there – if he were actually able to exercise away his depression he wouldn’t be Pizza Papalis’ most loyal customer – but the pain was muted now. Bearable, instead of overwhelming.

A whine cut through the night air. A little oddly pitched, maybe. Definitely out of breath. But as familiar to Yuuri as his own voice.

Mochi.

Or, rather, Yuuri’s unlucky soulmate, as new to the body of the silvery wolf as Yuuri was to his… dog? form. Somehow, he’d managed to keep up with Yuuri’s frantic run.

For some reason, he’d bothered to try.

He looked nervous, as he approached Yuuri. His ears were in constant motion; eagerly perked forward one moment, only to droop uncertainly in the next. His tail couldn’t seem to decide whether it wanted to wag or tuck itself between his hind legs, either.

And it hurt, seeing Mochi acting so conflicted. It hurt knowing that he wasn’t seeing _Mochi_ at all. It was a stranger looking at him with those blue, blue eyes.

_I wonder if he misses his soul beast, too._

Whatever his soulmate seemed to be looking for in Yuuri, he must not have found it. He let out another breathy whine before turning away, and now there was nothing conflicted in the way his shoulders slumped, his ears flattened miserably.

_He—he thinks I’ve rejected him._

“Wait!” Yuuri tried to call, but it translated into a short, sharp bark. _Definitely a dog of some kind_ , he found himself thinking, and was a little surprised at how much the idea pleased him. Mochi – Yuuri’s soulmate – stiffened, but he stopped walking away, and after a long moment he glanced back at Yuuri, his body language once again warring between hope and fear.

“I’m sorry—” Another bark, this one closer to a whine before it turned into a frustrated growl. How was he supposed to explain things to his soulmate when they were both like this, and would be for hours before it wore off? Morse code, maybe? Bark, bark, whine?

Now there was an idea. Too bad he didn’t _know_ any Morse code, and his soulmate wasn’t exactly likely to, either. Yuuri couldn’t help it; he huffed a doggie laugh at himself. How could anyone fuck up so many times in a single day? Was there a Guinness record? At last, a gold medal that Yuuri could walk away with. Hell, he was practically a screwup living legend, Japan’s human trashfire Ace! Another snicker escaped him, and now Mo—his soulmate was looking at him like he was crazy. And that set him off _again_. Because he might be insane, but at least his soulmate wasn’t acting like Yuuri had kicked him anymore, and if that wasn’t winning by Katsuki Yuuri standards, then what was?

But while his wolf’s confused head tilt was cute, and much better than sad puppy eyes, it was nowhere close to understanding. And he and his soulmate might not be able to talk to one another for a while, but they _were_ both dog people. Or dog-and-wolf people. Whatever; same ancestry. Same body language. So if Yuuri marched up to his soulmate and flopped over, rolling onto his back to expose his belly…

Best thing about being a dog? Dogs couldn’t blush. So Yuuri was the only one who knew that his face was flaming as he put thought into action, but it was worth it when he saw those icy eyes go wide.

The wolf whined a question. Yuuri barked an almost cheerful reply – _sorry; still can’t talk to you! Try again later!_ His soulmate sat back on his haunches, the head-tilt back, and regarded him thoughtfully. “Boof?”

“Arf!” This was absurd. It was nonsensical. But, against all odds, it seemed to be _working_.

At least, Yuuri thought so until his soulmate suddenly took off at full speed, leaving Yuuri lying on the pavement, alone.

 _Well. This—this is fine._ Yuuri sighed and closed his eyes. It wasn’t as though he didn’t deserve it, after the way he’d run away himself…

“Bork!”

Yuuri scrambled to his feet. His soulmate was standing not twenty meters away, his tail waving like a banner. He barked again. Then, as if to make his intention absolutely clear to Yuuri, he threw himself into a half-crouch, the one that Mochi – and Vicchan – used when they really wanted Yuuri to play with them.

And then he took off running again.

Oh. _Oh_. The wash of relief made Yuuri giddy, and he found his jaw gaping in a canine grin. _Oh, it is_ on.

He bounded after his soulmate.


	4. Flashback: Spring 2001

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Fatso,” Nishigori sneered at Yuuri as he skated past, using a finger to pull down his lower eyelid and expose the red inside. “Baby. _Baby_ fatso.”
> 
> Yuuri bristled, exactly as Nishigori had intended. “I’m not a baby,” he hissed. He _wasn’t_.

Yuuri could not remember a time when Yuuko and Nishigori had soul beasts. As far as he was concerned, Yuuko could always turn into a sika deer, as graceful bounding her way to school each morning as she was skating on the ice in the afternoons. And as for Nishigori…

“Get off him, Takeshi!” Yuuri did his best to breathe through his teeth so that he wouldn’t wind up with any more fur in his mouth, effectively pinned to the ice by two massive black-furred limbs. Nishigori was chortling at him, his donkey’s bray of a laugh just as recognizable when the older boy was bullying Yuuri in bear form as when he was human. Theoretically human, anyway; Yuuri had his doubts.

Nishigori rumbled something mocking at him, probably wanting to know if Yuuri was going to cry. And they both knew the answer to that, even if Nishigori didn’t seem to realize that Yuuri’s tears were always more angry than anything else. It didn’t matter; Yuuri always cried in the end.

“Cut it _out_ —”

Didn’t Yuuko understand that defending Yuuri against her own soulmate only ever made things worse? Nishigori was shifting his weight from side to side now, squeezing the breath out of Yuuri with every movement. It didn’t hurt, exactly – Japanese black bears weren’t _that_ big and Nishigori wasn’t even close to being full size yet – but it drove home exactly how small and helpless Yuuri was. How human.

* * *

It had started ordinarily enough.

“Fatso,” Nishigori sneered at Yuuri as he skated past, using a finger to pull down his lower eyelid and expose the red inside. “Baby. _Baby_ fatso.”

Yuuri bristled, exactly as Nishigori had intended. “I’m not a baby,” he hissed. He _wasn’t_.

Nishigori swerved to cut Yuuri off, launching into a waltz jump directly in Yuuri’s path that made him twist into a hockey-stop to avoid crashing into the older boy. “Babies can’t even skate straight!”

“I _can too_ —”

“Babies need their sister and soul beast to protect them!”

That was a low blow. Yuuri had never asked Mochi to go find Mari when those other kids started ganging up on him, and he’d definitely never asked his older sister to run them off. But Mochi had, and Mari had, and now school was even more miserable than it was before. It wasn’t fair.

“Babies _name_ their soul beasts!”

That, in Nishigori’s eyes, was Yuuri’s worst crime, and he wasn’t alone in his opinion. Even Yuuko winced a little whenever Yuuri used Mochi’s name around her, although she was too kind to say anything to him outright. Soul beasts were regarded as people, not pets, and as such they were supposed to be treated respectfully. Naming a piece of his future mate’s soul after a sticky rice cake wasn’t respectful, not even if Yuuri was two years old when he did it. He certainly wasn’t supposed to stubbornly stick to the name all the way to eight-and-a-half, resisting any efforts to convince him to change it to something more appropriate.

But Mochi was _Mochi_ , not Okami, or Wuulfu, or some weird English endearment like Darling or Sweetheart.

“At least I still _have_ mine,” Yuuri found himself snapping, and the instant the words were out of his mouth he wished he could take them back. But he couldn’t, and the way Nishigori’s face was twisting, there was no way the older boy would even let him try.

_If you've already eaten the poison, you might as well clean your plate…_

“I don’t even want a soulmate! _You’re_ someone’s soulmate, and you’re awful! I love Mochi for Mochi, and I hope I _never_ lose him!”

Five seconds after Yuuri screamed that blasphemy he was trapped under seventy kilos of bear, Yuuko had come running from where she had been helping her mother sort rental skates, and Mochi…

Mochi lifted his head from where he’d been dozing at rinkside. He stretched lazily, looking unconcerned as he got to his feet, although his pale eyes didn’t leave Nishigori’s brown ones once. His jaws parted slightly, as though he was flashing a smile.

And then he lunged for Nishigori’s throat.

The bear let out a squall that was somewhere between shock and fear, backpedaling furiously to avoid the wolf’s sudden attack. One of his paws caught Yuuri on the shoulder, ruining his sweatshirt and leaving a shallow scrape in his skin. Mochi’s jaws closed on air, and he spun around for another leap. This one missed as well, bare centimeters from Nishigori’s nose.

Yuuko screamed. The bear wailed and continued to scurry backwards away from Yuuri while Mochi charged him, again and again. 

“Yuuri! Do something!” Yuuko grabbed Yuuri’s arm, her fingernails digging into his flesh in her fear for her soulmate. Yuuri opened his mouth to shout, but then he noticed something, and what came out was an incredulous laugh.

Mochi hadn’t touched Nishigori once. 

The wolf was driving the bear around the ice, harrying him, lunging at the terrified Nishigori again and again, his lips curled back to bare his teeth in a vicious snarl, but his snapping jaws never managed to connect. And Yuuri had _seen_ Mochi hunt before; squirrels, and rabbits, and the occasional raccoon dog. His soul beast was murder on the local wildlife. When he wanted to be. When he didn’t…

“Yuuri!” Yuuko shrieked, and Yuuri laughed again. He couldn’t help it.

“It’s okay, Yuu-chan. Mochi’s not hurting him, see? He’s just. Bullying him back.”

Yuuko’s eyes widened after a moment and started to sparkle, and she might have laughed with Yuuri, but at that moment her mother appeared at the rink entrance, drawn by the commotion.

Tanaka-san took in Yuuri’s scraped-up shoulder, the gouged and clothing-strewn ice, and Mochi’s continuing feints on Nishigori, a thoughtful look on her face. “You should probably call your beast off,” she said at last.

“Do I _have_ to?” Yuuri found himself blurting out. He flushed and ducked his head in embarrassment, but Yuuko’s mother only shook her head and tsked.

“Perhaps not _just_ yet, but we do need to prepare the ice for this afternoon’s open skate. This is going to require extra Zamboni time, I think. I’ll get the first aid kit for your arm, too.”

He tried to protest that he was fine, but it wasn’t an argument he could win and Yuuri knew it. Tanaka-san patted him on the shoulder that hadn’t been mauled. “You’re very lucky, to have such a protective soul beast.”

And Yuuri knew what she was really saying, that the personality traits the beast displayed would be reflected in the man who would eventually come to replace him. But he didn’t want to think about that. Not now, or ever.

_I love Mochi for Mochi._

“I know,” he said aloud. “I’m the luckiest soulmate ever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies that this chapter is late. I wound up rewriting it from the ground up because I hated it.
> 
> I hope it was worth the wait!
> 
> Culture Note: _Doku kuwaba sara made_ translates to "When poisoned, one might as well swallow the plate." It's the Japanese equivalent of "In for a penny, in for a pound."


	5. Lost and Found...ish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I don’t suppose you know the way back..?_
> 
> No, they discovered to their mutual chagrin after the wolf had taken the lead for a while. No, he did not.

When was the last time that Yuuri had played? Not goofed around on the ice, which was still training no matter what Ciao Ciao said about it, not jogged or bicycled, but just _played_? He couldn’t remember. Probably with Vicchan, before he’d left Japan. It had been far too long.

Tag had turned into hide and seek, which became tug of war when they found some child’s abandoned jump-rope. His soulmate had tried to let him win at first, probably because Yuuri was a third of the wolf’s size, but a few pointed growls had put an end to that nonsense. He never could bear to be patronized, and he’d be damned if he was going to let his soulmate start taking him less than seriously now. So Yuuri did his best, and he lost anyway, and the only thing better than being dragged across the grass by his enormous soulmate was the delight said soulmate took in trouncing him once he realized that Yuuri really wasn’t going to be mad at him for winning.

Eventually they wound up in a little neighborhood park, the kind with a few pieces of playground equipment and a picnic area. Yuuri watched in amusement as his soulmate climbed the steps of a tall metal slide, only to balk nervously when he reached the top. He peered down at Yuuri and whined, and Yuuri couldn’t help but huff his laughter. It wasn’t as though the wolf could go back down the way he’d came; the steps were too narrow for that.

Yuuri barked. _You’re going to have to either slide down or give up and admit that you just live up there now!_ His meaning must have been clear enough, because the wolf’s ears drooped and he whined louder.

Yuuri’s soulmate jerked his head back toward the steps, then pointedly at Yuuri. _You could come up here and help me…_

Biting back another laugh, Yuuri shook his head firmly. _He_ wasn’t dumb enough to strand himself at the top of the slide. Particularly not when he was pretty sure his soulmate had only been trying to show off in the first place. Yuuri sat back on his haunches, wrapped his tail primly around his feet (and it was a _good_ tail, long and black and bushy, with a white paintbrush tip, almost like a fox’s), and cocked his head to the side. _I’m waiting…_

With a final whine and a great, heaving sigh, Yuuri’s soulmate closed his eyes and flung himself forward. Where Yuuri would probably have pressed his feet to the sides and bottom of the slide to create drag and slow his momentum, his soulmate either opted not to or didn’t think of it. The wolf zoomed down the metal incline at approximately Mach-10, a high, yelping howl tearing from his throat all the way down. At the bottom he spilled into the woodchip-covered landing, tumbling nose over tail to come to rest at Yuuri’s feet – at which point he flopped over onto his back, his front paws tucked dramatically against his chest as though clutching his heart, and went still, closing his eyes and sticking his tongue out as his body went limp.

It was easily the most extra thing Yuuri had ever seen.

He was still trying to think of an appropriate response – should he use his paws to applaud? Should he howl in fake mourning? Should he look through the park’s garden beds for a late-blooming flower to fling on his soulmate’s ‘corpse’? Maybe not that last one; he wasn’t sure which local plants might be poisonous – when a fat raindrop splattered on his nose. Yuuri sneezed indignantly, and his soulmate’s tightly-scrunched eyes opened to peer up at him.

Within seconds, it was pouring.

Yuuri’s soulmate scrambled to his feet, jerking his head over his shoulder as if to say, _Shall we?_ Yuuri replied with a nod and started trotting in the direction he was pretty sure they’d come from. _Pretty sure_ being the problem. He’d only been sort of keeping track of where he and the wolf had been going since they’d started playing, and hadn’t paid attention at all while he was panic-running. After the second time he had them turn around, only to wind up at yet another unfamiliar intersection, Yuuri had to admit that he was completely lost. He glanced up at his soulmate. _I don’t suppose you know the way back..?_

No, they discovered to their mutual chagrin after the wolf had taken the lead for a while. No, he did not. And while the rain hadn’t penetrated their thick outer coats yet, it was only a matter of time until it did. Probably right about when First Shift wore off and left them naked, soaked, and cold.

By unspoken agreement (that involved a lot of headshakes, ear flicks, and pointed barking), they had stopped turning at intersections and were walking in a straight line, towards what looked like the brightest part of the horizon. The Olympic Park was right on the Black Sea, but so was the tourist district, and that was what was most likely to be kept lit up in the middle of the night. Or, at least, that was Yuuri’s logic. He assumed his soulmate was thinking along similar lines.

Unfortunately, the day was catching up with Yuuri fast. He hadn’t slept well the previous night (or for several weeks before that, if he was being honest with himself), and the bruises he’d earned during his disastrous free skate were starting to make themselves known. Then there’d been his little crying jag in the bathroom, and the not-so-little panic attack when he and his soulmate had first shifted. And then they’d run for some unknown number of miles while Yuuri, at least, hadn’t eaten since lunchtime…

No wonder his steps were starting to plod. His soulmate didn’t seem to be faring much better, either.

The wolf stopped abruptly with a bark. Yuuri whined a question, but rather than respond directly, his soulmate broke into a tired lope toward a nearby building. It had golden Cyrillic text surrounding a seal of some kind set into the brickwork, and Yuuri could see people walking around through the glass door. They wore uniforms, with gleaming badges on their chests.

Yuuri’s soulmate had found a police station. He was a _genius_.

The glass pull-door was beyond them, so it took both of them barking to attract the attention of the night clerk. He didn’t seem amused when he opened the door to regard the two sodden canines.

The officer growled something in Russian, and Yuuri groaned inwardly. Of course the policeman would assume two random shifteds would speak Russian!

Thankfully, Yuuri’s soulmate seemed to understand the language just fine. He started nodding and shaking his head in answer to the cop’s questions, using the occasional eye roll or whine when he needed to express something beyond yes or no. Eventually the officer sighed and shouted something over his shoulder. The response must have been affirmative, because – at last – he stopped blocking the doorway and allowed Yuuri and his soulmate to follow him inside.

They followed the officer through a long hallway, past a door that clearly led to the lockup, and into a room at the rear of the station. The room was wood-paneled, and boasted a single CRT television in front of a pair of couches that had seen better days. Behind what was obviously used as the station break area was a single, large cell, that was lined with benches on three sides.

“We have to spend the night in the drunk tank?” Yuuri shrieked, or tried to, as the officer unlocked and opened the barred door with a flourish. He laughed at Yuuri’s outraged yelps, and the wolf made a conciliatory noise before trotting into the giant cage. He looked back at Yuuri from inside the cell, his eyes going big and soulful; Mochi’s famous puppydog eyes at full power.

 _Oh my god, less than a day and my soulmate has already landed me in jail. Which not even_ Phichit _has managed, and he’s_ tried! But what other choice did they have? The holding cell was warm, dry, and as safe a place the spend the night as they could hope for given the circumstances. And there was no one else in it, at least for now.

With a sigh, he followed his wolf inside.

The cop continued to chuckle at Yuuri and his soulmate. Obviously, they were the high point of a dull evening. But he did produce an armload of blankets for the two canines, and even if they bore some stains that Yuuri didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about, they were clean.

They took turns shaking themselves dry (at which point the cop made himself scarce with a vile-sounding curse), and the wolf spent some time arranging the blankets on one of the benches before he turned to Yuuri and slapped his paw twice against the bench in the universal pet owner language of “hop up”. Yuuri obeyed gratefully, and his soulmate waited just long enough for Yuuri to settle himself comfortably before joining him, curling up at Yuuri’s side.

Yuuri rested his head on his delicate black paws. He was vaguely aware of the wolf pulling a blanket over the both of them with his teeth, and then he might have felt warm breath and a fleeting, hesitant lick on his forehead just above his closed eyes – like a kiss – just before sleep took him.

Or he might have dreamed that part.


	6. NOTE: Story delay :(

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N

Hi, all! Soooo.... it's been a minute. 

Long story short: 1. Multi-day migraine. 2. OH HEY LOOK MY SCREEN IS BULGING OUT, I WONDER IF GOOGLE WILL TELL ME WHY IT DO THAT... wait, what do you mean "might <i>explode</i>"?!?!

So my writing computer is out for in-warranty repair. The last time I had it fixed it took a couple weeks because of mailing out and back, so this fic is going to have to wait for a bit. I might try to sneak some writing in on my work computer but that is risky as hell, so ???.

Sorry for the non-update!

**Author's Note:**

> I changed the fic title! I'm still not entirely happy with it, but I can't call it by the WIP title I've been using because it's a giant spoiler, and I didn't want to make the gift any more late than it already is because I can't name the stupid thing.
> 
> Did I mention I'm posting 1 chap per day? Because that's what I'm doing.


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